Well…after all the time I just recently put into rebuilding the OS, reinstalling most of the software on my gaming rig, it has died. Yes ladies and gentlemen, the four year old rig seems to have died on me. All worked fine on Wednesday evening. I had spent some time flying in P3D and on Thursday morning before work it booted up fine and I installed a few more airport scenery add-ons. I came home on Thursday afternoon and attempted to boot up the beast and it briefly powered on, but immediately shut off.
The root cause appears to be a failure on the motherboard. I removed the 1000w Corsair I had installed in the gaming rig and quickly replaced it with a known-good 750w I had from another machine I have. Same issue. I must admit that I’ve been really lucky with my self-built gaming rigs. This one is the 4th rig I’ve built and the only one that has actually just died on me. The others just simply become outdated as time goes by and usually get moved into other duties when I build a new generation machine. But unfortunately, this one has died and at the current moment in time I have no other machine which is capable of playing the games I play.
To Repair or Replace
I really don’t feel repairing is a valid option for me. First, the machine is 4 years old. While replacing the motherboard is an option, I’m left with a 4 year old CPU (if that even still works) and most likely would just be delaying the inevitable. While this isn’t a good time for me financially, I feel my investment will be best served by completely building a new PC based on today’s technology.
More about Finances (or lack thereof)
So as not to reveal too much personal information. I’ll just state that at the present time our disposable income just isn’t in a good place right now for this project to be considered. Fortunately, my wife and I had an opportunity to pay off our mortgage early. In the long run, what we’ll save on interest payments if we had continued with our home loan was reason for us to take some of our retirement nest egg and payoff the loan. I’m a home owner! YEA!!!! Again, while we’re not broke….we’re just not in a situation for me to immediately point my browser to Amazon and start buying parts.
What does this mean for the GBS YouTube Channel?
Good question. If you’ve been watching any of my recent videos, then I’m sure you’ve heard me ramble on about the backlog of videos I have already recorded, rendered and uploaded to YouTube. I have content already in the pipeline through 15 May. This includes 9 episodes on the new map “Let’s Play” series I have recently started. Unfortunately, I really don’t believe I’ll be up and operational before I burn through that content. For this, I’m very sorry.
As I often say, and I know my loyal viewers also understand, hobbies must take a backseat to real life issues. My wife and I had been going back and forth the past few months on deciding whether or not to pay off the mortgage early and as I mentioned, the amount of money we’ll save just in interest payments over the next 10 years will really mean a lot for our retirement. Remember, I’m 51 (turning 52 in the fall) and I really only want to work as long as I need to.
The Next GBS Beast
I’ve already started planning the next generation GBS gaming beast. The initial plan is to go with the Intel i7-8700K CPU. This won’t be an off the shelf CPU, but a delidded version which is rated/certified to overclock to a screaming 5.1GHz. The benefit of the delidding service is typically the CPU temperature will run anywhere between 12°C to 25°C cooler which ensures greater stability and longer component lifespan. In addition, I’ll also be upgrading my graphics card from the 6GB 980Ti to the 11GB 1080Ti.
As with my four previous gaming machine builds, I’m building the machine to meet the gaming needs for not only today but also tomorrow and hopefully the day after that. Meaning, I would rather wait, save up the money and install the parts I feel are needed versus going with lower end parts and upgrading later.
ETA?
Ahhh, the million dollar question. At this very moment in time I really can’t answer this question. My initial plan right now is to sort through some old “stuff” I have laying around and see what I can sell and how much I can make from that. After all, one man’s junk, is another man’s treasure. According to my wife I have a goldmine of “stuff” laying around which I never use. To her credit, this is actually a true statement. I have enjoyed a wide variety of hobbies over the years and some of these hobbies no longer interest me and some of the equipment related to these hobbies are just sitting around collecting dust.
Update
So I began writing this article during the week of 21 April and as of today, 2 May I have made significant progress on obtaining the funds I need for the new build. New parts are arriving as early as today from Amazon, Newegg and CDW. Essentially the first parts to arrive are the ones I need first to start the build. New case, motherboard, CPU and CPU cooler will arrive today and I’ll begin the process of installing the components into the new case. While I’m really beginning to feel withdrawals from being able to play Farming Simulator and Prepar3D, I also very much enjoy this stage of PC building. So I plan to take my time and truly enjoy the moment. Hopefully by next week I’ll pickup the new graphics card, RAM and the remaining parts I need to fully complete the build.
Once the new machine is built, tested and fully functional…I’ll get FS17 installed and begin recording content. If all goes as currently planned, there will not be any gaps between my video release schedule.
Stay tuned….
Until next time…
Jerry
Good luck Grizz, I always had as much fun building the rig as I did using it. Sadly, with my current position in life a desktop makes little to no sense as it would shut me off from the rest of the family so I rely on semi powerful laptops to play games and still be able to be around when needed. That 1080Ti is definitely drool worthy though…. 🙂